How many hours a day do you spend on RPGs?

[Mercurius]

Now for something a bit different: How much time do you send, on average, per day on everything RPG-related? Obviously this fluctuates wildly, but look at your total time spent per week or month and figure out the daily equivalent. I'm including actual gaming, preparation, reading RPG books, fiddling about with RPG materials, online forums, shopping (online or in stores), etc...basically anything that you do that is related to RPGs (table-top, that is).

I'd love to see actual breakdowns; I'll use myself as an example - but in terms of the poll, just add up the hours and find the average per day.

Gaming - about 4 hrs every other week; this averages out to about 15-20 minutes a day.
Preparation - depending upon whether I'm GMing or not, this can range widely but is usually in the 1-2 hrs/wk range, so maybe 5-10 min/day.
Reading RPG books - Varies, anywhere from not at all to an hour or more in a day. I'd guess the average is around 10-20 min/day.
Online forums/news/etc - Again, varies, but the average is probably around an hour a day.
Shopping/browsing stores - probably an average of 10 min/day.

That's probably an average of close to 2 hrs/day, so I'm voting in the 1-2 hour range.

What about you?

 

[Lwaxy]

Does multitasking count? I usually do several things at once, like my browser games at the same time than RPG stuff, or sometimes watching videos same time, or reading my RPG books in the bathroom

I guess about 5 - 8 hrs a day, with some weeks to months in between where I have absolutely no time for online stuff like forums. Then it usually comes down to 4-10 hrs a week for my offline groups.

This is why I'm sometimes gone for up to a year from here

 

[Pheonix0114]

When I'm not overhalling a system to do things it wasn't designed for, which I'm not at the moment, I'd say about an hour or two a day until you factor in weekend sessions, so I put myself in the 2-4 range. I have in the past, and probably will again, go into the 4-6 or 6+ range.

 

[Desdichado]

Actually gaming? Our group seems to have somewhat imploded due to scheduling difficulties and we haven't had a session in a few months. So currently, 0 hours.

Preparation -- I wasn't the current GM. Usually when I am, I prepare about an hour or two for a 4-5 hour session. Not applicable currently, 0 hours.

Reading RPG books--varies. Right now I'm reading two actual game books; one that I recently bought and one that I'm re-reading. But that's right now. Most of the time, I'm not reading anything. Do D&D novels count? I'm also reading one of them currently, although again--most of the time I'm not.

Reading forums or blogs about gaming--maybe an hour tops.

Blogging about gaming or my setting--lately, maybe a half hour or so tops. I've tried to refocus my blog more on gaming, so that's up from what it was last year.

Shopping? Negligible. I don't spend time browsing stores--online or otherwise. I will go and buy something that I specifically want when it's availale, but I don't spend time looking at stuff.

 

[Ahnehnois]

My actual games are so irregular these days it's hard to say. I answered 30 minutes to an hour, but that's counting time spent on ENW. I don't read rpg books much anymore because I have everything I need. I don't do a ton of prep work because I have my stuff for right now ready and others will DM before I do anything substantial. I spent more time on it at one point, but grad school and various personal things have made it impractical.

 

[gamerprinter]

I picked 1 - 2 hours per day, but that includes looking at ENW, Paizo boards, sometimes working on an idea for this weekend's game, which means I might look at the PRD or d20pfsrd.com

However, being a designer, there have been days, I spent a full 8 hours beyond my day job (or during the weekend) to knock out a map, design a new class, or do page layout for a soon to be released product - and those kinds of tasks take hours and hours to do. And usually, it's 2 or 3 days of this in a row.

Every once in a while, I try not to look at anything RPG, as a one-day vacation away from it all, but that happens so seldom, that I'm usually in my 1 - 2 hours per day mode, which is normal for me.

 

[SnowleopardVK]

Nice timing on posting this thread. I've been adding up my hours for the past week (playing, designing, and looking up rules and things as much as I always do). 48 from the beginning of the month to now, and that's not even a full week yet. I'll probably get at least another 6 hours in tonight since I've got a session starting in a few hours.

So currently I spend an average of 6.85 hours a day. My actual average is probably closer to 7 and a half, or 8 hours.

I wish I could say I was a developer of something, or that this was my job, but nope, I just have FAR too much free time.

 

[mach1.9pants]

At the moment I am 1-2 hours because i have no group, so reading and forum stuff... I read a lot of RPGs. When I am DMing it goes into 2-4 easily.

 

[S'mon]

I have to say, reading & posting to RPG related blogs and forums alone is probably 6+ hours/day for me currently. Recently I haven't been watching TV at all, or reading the political blogs much, so when I'm awake it's mostly work, family and RPG blogs/forums. On a workday I'm away commuting & working 8.5-9.5 hours typically, maybe couple hours family stuff, sleep maybe 7 hours, most of the rest of the time is at least somewhat RPG related activities.

 

[Mark CMG]

How many hours a day do you spend on RPGs?

I had to take a moment to compose myself when I realized you thought the top end of the poll should be 6+. Between my blog, message boards reading, keeping up with RPG/gaming news, spreading the word about CMG on message boards, Facebook, Twitter, other websites, etc, I'd guess I spend two to three hours a day collectively, on average. Most times of the year I run a weekly RPG event (sometimes two), I run for gamedays a few to a handful of times per year, and same for conventions/mini-cons. Most of my reading, now that grad school is done, is geared toward RPGs either for direct research or indirect, such as reading books on history or biographies, and other RPGs and game systems. Do I count the fact that I consider much of what I watch genre-fiction-wise as research for setting ideas too? If so, that adds a bit each week. I prepare all of my foodstuffs in traditional Medieval - Naw, just kidding on that last part. Anyway, it's much more than six hours a day on average. I'm thankful now that you didn't make the poll range higher or I might be able to climb up it and jump off.